Re: [PATCH] kthread: add kthread_mod_pending_delayed_work api

[Yiwei Zhang‎]

Since you awesome guys are here, I do have another kthread related
question, and hopefully to get some suggestions:

Below are the conditions:
1. The caller threads queuing the work are normal threads(non-RT).
2. The worker thread is a realtime kernel thread with relatively high prio.
3. We are not allowed to pin caller threads to fixed cpu clusters.

Sometimes when the CPU is busy, the worker thread starts preempting
the caller thread, which is not cool because it will make the
asynchronous effort a no-op. Is there a way we can include caller
thread metadata(task_struct pointer?) when it enqueues the work so
that the RT worker thread won't preempt the caller thread when that
queued work gets scheduled? Probably require the CPU scheduler to poke
at the next work...or any other ideas will be very appreciated,
thanks!

Best regards,
Yiwei

On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 4:39 PM Yiwei Zhang‎ <zzyiwei@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 2:56 AM Petr Mladek <pmladek@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun 2021-02-14 00:06:11, Yiwei Zhang wrote:
> > > The existing kthread_mod_delayed_work api will queue a new work if
> > > failing to cancel the current work due to no longer being pending.
> > > However, there's a case that the same work can be enqueued from both
> > > an async request and a delayed work, and a racing could happen if the
> > > async request comes right after the timeout delayed work gets scheduled,
> > > because the clean up work may not be safe to run twice.
> >
> > Please, provide more details about the use case. Why the work is
> > originally sheduled with a delay. And and why it suddenly can/should
> > be proceed immediately.
> >
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Yiwei Zhang <zzyiwei@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > ---
> > >  include/linux/kthread.h |  3 +++
> > >  kernel/kthread.c        | 48 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > >  2 files changed, 51 insertions(+)
> > >
> > > --- a/kernel/kthread.c
> > > +++ b/kernel/kthread.c
> > > @@ -1142,6 +1142,54 @@ bool kthread_mod_delayed_work(struct kthread_worker *worker,
> > >  }
> > >  EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kthread_mod_delayed_work);
> > >
> > > +/**
> > > + * kthread_mod_pending_delayed_work - modify delay of a pending delayed work
> > > + * @worker: kthread worker to use
> > > + * @dwork: kthread delayed work to queue
> > > + * @delay: number of jiffies to wait before queuing
> > > + *
> > > + * If @dwork is still pending modify @dwork's timer so that it expires after
> > > + * @delay. If @dwork is still pending and @delay is zero, @work is guaranteed to
> > > + * be queued immediately.
> > > + *
> > > + * Return: %true if @dwork was pending and its timer was modified,
> > > + * %false otherwise.
> > > + *
> > > + * A special case is when the work is being canceled in parallel.
> > > + * It might be caused either by the real kthread_cancel_delayed_work_sync()
> > > + * or yet another kthread_mod_delayed_work() call. We let the other command
> > > + * win and return %false here. The caller is supposed to synchronize these
> > > + * operations a reasonable way.
> > > + *
> > > + * This function is safe to call from any context including IRQ handler.
> > > + * See __kthread_cancel_work() and kthread_delayed_work_timer_fn()
> > > + * for details.
> > > + */
> > > +bool kthread_mod_pending_delayed_work(struct kthread_worker *worker,
> > > +                                   struct kthread_delayed_work *dwork,
> > > +                                   unsigned long delay)
> > > +{
> >
> > kthread_worker API tries to follow the workqueue API. It helps to use and
> > switch between them easily.
> >
> > workqueue API does not provide this possibility. Instead it has
> > flush_delayed_work(). It queues the work when it was pending and
> > waits until the work is procced. So, we might do:
> >
> > bool kthread_flush_delayed_work(struct kthread_delayed_work *dwork)
> >
> >
> > > +     struct kthread_work *work = &dwork->work;
> > > +     unsigned long flags;
> > > +     int ret = true;
> > > +
> > > +     raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&worker->lock, flags);
> > > +     if (!work->worker || work->canceling ||
> > > +         !__kthread_cancel_work(work, true, &flags)) {
> > > +             ret = false;
> > > +             goto out;
> > > +     }
> >
> > Please, use separate checks with comments as it is done, for example,
> > in kthread_mod_delayed_work()
> >
> >         struct kthread_work *work = &dwork->work;
> >         unsigned long flags;
> >         int ret;
> >
> >         raw_spin_lock_irqsave(&worker->lock, flags);
> >
> >         /* Do not bother with canceling when never queued. */
> >         if (!work->worker)
> >                 goto nope;
> >
> >         /* Do not fight with another command that is canceling this work. */
> >         if (work->canceling)
> >                 goto nope;
> >
> >         /* Nope when the work was not pending. */
> >         ret = __kthread_cancel_work(work, true, &flags);
> >         if (!ret)
> >                 nope;
> >
> >         /* Queue the work immediately. */
> >         kthread_insert_work(worker, work, &worker->work_list);
> >         raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&worker->lock, flags);
> >
> >         return kthread_flush_work(work);
> > nope:
> >         raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore(&worker->lock, flags);
> >         return false;
> >
> >
> > Will this work for you?
> >
> > Best Regards,
> > Petr
>
> Thanks for your comments and reviews, Petr! I completely understand
> Christoph's pushback regarding no upstream use case here. Just want to
> see if this is a missing use case in kthread. I'll propose again if
> later I find a use case in any upstream drivers.
>
> Best,
> Yiwei